CBD: The All-Natural Wellness Product Thousands of Years in the Making

What’s the first thought that comes to mind when you think of the Stone Age?

No, not The Rock’s debut in WWF/WWE (November 4th, 1996, for those who are wondering), I mean THE Stone Age. The one that ended around 2000 BCE when metal tools started hitting store shelves. At the tail end of the Stone Age was the Neolithic Era, when farming was developed. One of the first crops that archeologists discovered from that era might be familiar: Hemp.

That’s right, hemp has been cultivated and used for a variety of purposes for thousands and thousands of years. Hemp’s robust fibers made it an incredibly versatile crop that could be used to produce clothing, shoes, rope, and even paper. Fast forward from the end of the Stone Age to a far more recent couple of hundred years ago, and you discover hemp being grown as a cash-crop by many U.S. presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

The industrial uses of hemp have been widely known for a long time. A large portion of the uniforms, canvas, and rope that the United States used during World War 2 was produced from hemp. But the medicinal properties of this incredible plant were also no secret. Hemp includes high concentrations of cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the active chemical compounds found in the Cannabis Sativa species of plant. As far back as the 19th century you could find CBD being used as an ameliorative. Queen Victoria was rumored to have used it to relieve pain associated with cramps.